The present invention relates generally to telecommunications services and more particularly to call processing.
Call forwarding systems that forward incoming calls based upon the day of the week on which and/or the time of day during which incoming calls are received are well known. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,592,541 to Fleischer III et al., describes a system that forwards incoming calls based upon the date and/or the time of day a call is received. The calls are forwarded in response to a call processing control record that can be created by a user. To create the call processing records, the user utilizes his/her telephone to sequentially transmit data in the form of dual-tone multi-frequency (DTMF) input to a telecommunications network. The data typically consists of the telephone number to which incoming calls are to be forwarded along with date and time of day during which such forwarding should occur. This data is received by the network and is used to create the call processing control record that contains the information provided by the user. The call processing control record can be used to forward incoming calls. The forwarding of incoming calls in response to the call processing control record can typically be activated and deactivated through input commands, such as DTMF input, provided by the user. Other call forwarding systems require the user to provide the same type of information to the network via voice input.
Call forwarding systems such as these suffer from a common problem associated with the time and effort required to create the call processing control records. These types of systems require the user to create the call processing control records by entering the data required to produce the call processing control record. The user is typically required to sequentially input the necessary data through the use of a telephone or by providing voice input. This process can be cumbersome and time consuming, especially when multiple call processing control records must be created by a user.
Accordingly, an improved system and method are needed for creating call processing control records that overcome these deficiencies.